The new poster section was established to be complimentary to the other fanart types we offer here on the site and was supposed to be a“Good Thing”. Unfortunately it has become polarizing issue that has both users and mods alike at ends. This is the last thing we want as a community and we either need to attempt to fix this, or close the section.

The Vision:

Posters in general were supposed to represent an original media cover that makes it easy to identify the movie or series in your media collection. The size of 1000×1426 was decided upon because it is the“official aspect ratio”of DVD covers, and sized big enough to allow for future improvements in media center resolution. Being the leader in high quality fanart, we also decided to require that posters only display the logo, or no text at all. Most of all, it was supposed to represent the highest possible quality images available befitting this site.

The Problems:

While the“Vision” seems pretty straight forward, you would be amazed how many ways this can be interpreted.

What appears to be the biggest misinterpretation, is that this is just another fanart background section at a different aspect ratio. Meaning that too many people are just taking any image from a movie or TV series and either slapping one of the available logos on it, (or all the logos) or none at all and uploading it. Posters are not like backgrounds where they will rotate in your media center and there really is no reason to flood a section with every possible variation that could exist for an image.

Another point of contention is, what is considered a “Portrait”. This was not foreseen when we opened the section, but when we started seeing tons of images pouring in of basically“head shots” of characters (or similar in some way), it was clear that we needed to address it. This may have not been the best way to deal with this, as there are some original covers out there that are indeed Portraits. Usually there is some sort of artistic element that makes it more fitting as a cover though. In any case, the poster section was not designed to be a character catalog. There may not be a clear way to define a rule to discourage this type of poster, but try to imagine the poster you are submitting being displayed on a DVD case in a store on a shelf somewhere. Can you see it? If not, it’s probably not fitting for this section either.

What might be the biggest problem of all and left the door open for the first two problems mentioned, is the acceptance of“Custom” posters. It would have been much easier to just deny the use of custom posters on the site and require that every poster reflect the original. While this would have made life infinitely easier on us moderators, it would also stifle the creativity of our user base and we would miss out on some true masterpieces that our users are capable of. We would never want that and personally would rather close the section altogether, than only allow originals.

Solution:

There will never be a set of rules that will appeal to everyone and it’s ridiculous to even try. We can only hope that people will try to “see” what we are trying to achieve with this section and either choose to participate and expand it, or forgo this section and concentrate on others. We are looking for and “Prefer” original covers in“High Quality”. When you think you can do better than the original and want to offer an alternative, we ask that you consider the following.

Is this something I would see on a store shelf somewhere?

Does this really represent the movie/series in an identifiable way?

Is my source material good enough to be considered“HighQuality”?

Would I consider this poster to be my one and only poster for this series?

What we need to get away from is making a ton of posters for a movie/series and concentrate on making High Quality, interesting and unique posters for many movies/series. We are considering imposing a limit of 3 posters per movie/series per user, but would rather have everyone police themselves instead. There may be times when more than 3 could be warranted but would rather not have to give“special"permission to do so.

Never forget the credo of this site.

“It is better to have no image at all than a bad image”

There are plenty of places on the net to get sub-par images and we intend to keep our standards high.

In closing,we do not want to see this section continue to be a point of contention for users and mods alike. We appreciate everyone’s contributions and hard work in expanding the site, but we also must have some cohesion or we will just end up pleasing no one. Please consider if you can get behind the vision of this section, or decide to pass on contributing to it. There is no shame in disagreeing with what is laid out here, as everyone has a different vision, and there are still plenty of places to share your art if you don’t agree.

We really hope this will help us all to move forward together on the same page. If not, I’d rather close the section than to have a bunch of disgruntled users.

Cheers

EDIT: Some new rules will go into effect today. 02-14-14Rule:A limit of 4 posters per show/movie per user. This can be any combination of text/textless. No Exceptions!Rule:Moderator decisions are FINAL. Uploading the same image without adjusting what was requested will not be tolerated. This does not mean you can't ask for a second opinion from another mod if you feel strongly enough that your denied image was done within the rules, but you had better make sure you are in the right as no mod wants to second guess another mod and will tend to side with the mod unless it's a clear discrepancy. You should ALWAYS start by opening a dialog with the original mod first before asking for a second opinion, and please attach the original deny conversation when getting a second opinion.

Unfortunately it's true that some images will be judged subjectively. There is no way to make a set of rules that will cover every possible scenario and it's up to the mods to make that decision. This just means you should strive to upload images that do not straddle the rules and can't be misinterpreted. If you do, there may be a chance that you spent a great deal of time on something that may never get approved.

I think for people just setting out designing alternative covers for movies/tv series should look to the original cover first for inspiration. As an ex-graphic designer myself I used to have a collection of my most favorite designs/artwork and look to some of them to decide on what I could do to make something a better piece or fit into a paticular design. In the case of a DVD/Bluray cover I normally start by seeing one or two DVD/Bluray region Covers. Then I decide on what I like and dont like about each design, be it the colour scheme or the overall placement of the title elements. I should also point out aswell, It helps if you've seen the damn movie or show!.

What is important is the fact that the logo should be of the same design, this one element is what we remember most about a poster and associate with a movie/tv show. Think of E.T. , Superman etc, you can see in your minds eye what that font/logo looks like no matter what its placed on you will always associate that font/logo with that movie. Having said that, there are some exceptions to the rule(like with everything!), for example Looney Tune cartoons, the font used by Warner I considered a funny/happy/silly kind of font. Now this is where it gets complicated because theres lots of funny/happy/silly fonts around!, its all about seeing which one would suit the paticular design. What I would suggest for beginners is just stick to the orignal logo design to start with and then work around that.

Anyway, back to the Poster rules of the site, having seen a fair whack of posters on here I would agree that some of them can be just considered a portrait photograph of the movie/tv show. Those ones I would just scrap definatelly, anyone can crop to a portrait size and call it a poster. I would ask administraitors of this site to look to print label sites like CustoManiacs for example and see what they're letting through as coverart, some of them are very orignal. But what I think everyone wants at the end of the day from fanart.tv is somewhere to get quality and choice for their home cinema HTPC movie/tv Posters. I have seen some excellent work on here and I for one want to give back something from which I have taken so much. Hats off to everyone running this site

Posters in general were supposed to represent an original media cover that makes it easy to identify the movie or series in your media collection. The size of 1000×1496 was decided upon because it is the“official aspect ratio”of DVD covers, and sized big enough to allow for future improvements in media center resolution.

Posters in general were supposed to represent an original media cover that makes it easy to identify the movie or series in your media collection. The size of 1000×1496 was decided upon because it is the“official aspect ratio”of DVD covers, and sized big enough to allow for future improvements in media center resolution.

Is the 1000x1426 resolution strictly enforced? It just seems crazy to me since most digital media software (iTunes, Plex, XBMC, etc.) uses a 1:1.5 ratio for cover art. So 1000x1500, basically. Now I understand why my fanart covers are cropped funny in Plex.